Tag Archive for 'hacking'

Circuit Bending at Fargo Hack Play Space

Published on 06/12/2011 in Art. 0 Comments Tags: circuit bending, Coventry ain't that bad, fargo, glitch, Hack, hacking, toy, vtech.

On Sunday 27th November I did a one-day micro-residency at Fargo Hack Play Space in Coventry. I was asked to bring unfinished projects, completed projects or something completely new that I wanted to start on. I have a fair bit of Pure Data and Processing code and ideas that need(ed) a lot of attention but I had serious doubts of whether they could be completed in six hours.

To say I had absolutely no idea what I was going to achieve in one day would be quite an understatement.

In the end I took along my laptop, the unfinshed audio cable hack, an Arduino, and the Vtech Learning Alphabet Classroom Toy toy that I had previously bought for a fizzPOP Circuit Bending Hack Session:

My previous attempts to hack it back then were largely unsuccessful. I was able to cut out the audio completely and break the toy on several occasions, but what I was after was a way to control or glitch the audio and LCD screen.

Part of my problem was that there were very few components to play around with. Aside from the buttons themselves all I had was a circuit board that had very tiny components.

Thankfully, with the help of Dom and Ashley I was able to locate the resistors and attach a potentiometer. Results varied throughout the day, but I was able to get it producing something out of the ordinary!

But then it borked.

Regardless, it’s progress! I’ll be continuing work on it soon, and may even try hooking up the buttons to an Arduino or my computer to trigger other things.

Thanks to Dom and Ashley for inviting me down there for the day, and for the pizza

Fargo Hack Play Space

Published on 27/11/2011 in Events. 0 Comments Tags: coventry, fargo, hacking, this is what tired looks like.

This Sunday (i.e. today) I’ll be doing a micro residency (i.e. one day) at Fargo Hack Play Space in Coventry, UK (i.e. not Birmingham)

(i.e. (i.e. (i.e. (i.e. (i.e.)))))

This Sunday we will be hosting the Fargo Hack Play Space, an informal exhibition and sharing of new work from our residency at the Talking Birds curated Fargo Space.

We love watching people play with the Don’t Touch Screen at Warwick Arts Centre; that little moment of joy people feel as they realise they are in control of the piece, no matter the technology. We were keen to try and create something new that explored that same interaction between analogue and digital.

There’ll be a circuit bending session from 10am, but do contact @ludicrooms to see if there’s still places available.

I’ve no idea what I’ll be making yet, but I’m sure it’ll involve me breaking lots of stuff into tiny insignificant pieces.

GLI.TC/H BIRM preview: Jon Satrom

Published on 19/11/2011 in Events. 0 Comments Tags: Birmingham, gli.tc/h, glidottcslashh, glitch, hacking, vivid.

GLI.TC/H has started and on Saturday November 19th it’ll be making its way to VIVID in Birmingham, UK! The full programme is available here, and as a PDF. Over the week I’ll be providing a bitesized overview of the upcoming events.

Realtime A/V: Jon Satrom

Jon Satrom presents a prepared desktop performance, where he uses the operating system itself as an instrument:

Bio

Satrom spends his days fixing things and making things work. He spends his evenings breaking things and searching for unique blips inherent to the systems he explores and exploits. Satrom teaches a course on Glitch Art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, runs a creative web and video studio called Studio Thread, performs real-time audio/video, creates colorful glitch-ware, and is involved in various collective online and offline new-media efforts.

Realtime A/V: Art of Failure

Nicolas Maigret of Art of Failure will perform 8 Silences, which is a completely audio-only performance:

8 silences offers a sensible representation of Internet by broadcasting audio streams that travel and reverberate trough the web. Initially silents, the streams progressively incorporate an infinity of transformations or “errors” that modify the sound as it circulates on the network. These alterations are comparable to a form of erosion caused by the network space – they are a key to allow different mental representations of this digital topography. Presented as a live performance, 8 silences is a sound immersion in the heart of data flows.
8 silences is a live piece made from mixing together several silent ogg and mp3 stream loops with different quality settings (error corrections are bypassed). Each loop is going to a different location on the globe, and then coming back to the location of the concert venue. Performers stand with a laptop in different parts of the venue (non scenic performance). The audio streamloops are exchanged in wifi around the public.

Here’s the audio from a performance of 8 Silences in Paris in 2010:
Art Of Failure : 8 silences live @ IRL Paris 2010 by artoffailure

Bio

The imperfections allow to identify a medium, in the style of glass becoming visible by the accumulated dusts and scratches. Within the ART OF FAILURE collective, Nicolas Maigret and Nicolas Montgermont experiment the capacity of the contemporary technologies to generate specific sound or visual languages. In their realizations, the internal characteristics of the media are revealed through their errors, dysfunctions, borderlines or failure threshold, which they develop sensory and immersive audio visual experiences.